Faults and infrared thermographic diagnosis in operating c-Si photovoltaic modules: A review of research and future challenges

Photovoltaic (PV) solar energy recorded an exponential growth, in worldwide scale, over the last decade. Inevitably, mature PV markets are becoming highly competitive, boosting the need for research and development (R&D) on efficiency and reliability optimization, maintenance and fault diagnosis of key components, such as the PV modules. Indeed, a significant number of studies and technical papers have been published up today, based on an extensive feedback from both laboratory and real (field) investigations of faults and advanced diagnosis applications, especially for crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV modules. Undoubtedly, such experience is of particular interest for current PV plant operators, future investors, maintenance engineers and the R&D sector of PV industry. However, up today, such research, published in the form of reports, technical papers or even books, remains mostly dispersed and unclassified. This paper represents a comprehensive effort to review and highlight recent advances, ongoing research and future prospects, as reported in the literature, on the classification of faults in c-Si PV modules and advanced diagnosis in the field, by means of the increasingly popular method of infrared thermal (IRT) imaging. In particular, the first main part of this paper, reviews the characteristics of the most common fault types of operating PV modules, in terms of electrical and thermal response. Then, the second part gives a thorough review of recently published research, as well as the state-of-the-art, in the fields of IRT-based fault diagnosis and thermal image processing. On the basis of these two individual though supplementary review parts, an overview table is presented, followed by a discussion on the future prospects and challenges, towards the understanding and diagnosis of faults and their propagation in operating PV modules.